Feeding 10 Billion

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can connect with Varun Deshpande:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Find GFI on Social Media:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: IVM Podcasts - Apps on Google Play or iOS: ‎IVM Podcasts, or any other podcast app.

You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can connect with Varun Deshpande:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Find GFI on Social Media:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: IVM Podcasts - Apps on Google Play or iOS: ‎IVM Podcasts, or any other podcast app.

You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can connect with Varun Deshpande:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Find GFI on Social Media:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: IVM Podcasts - Apps on Google Play or iOS: ‎IVM Podcasts, or any other podcast app.

You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can connect with Varun Deshpande:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Find GFI on Social Media:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: IVM Podcasts - Apps on Google Play or iOS: ‎IVM Podcasts, or any other podcast app.

You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alongside transitioning our energy supply, transitioning to smart protein and away from animal-derived agriculture is the most important thing we can do to preserve our link with our heritage, and safeguard our future - put differently, to have our meat and our planet too. In the face of climate change brought on by excessive land, water, and energy use, a world scrambling for food security, and global health crises like antibiotic resistance and future pandemics, can we build back better? We’re here to discuss exactly that in Season 2.5 of Feeding 10 Billion.

In this introductory episode, GFI India Managing Director Varun Deshpande and GFI India Communication Associate Ayesha Marfatia sit down to discuss the incredible growth the smart protein sector has seen over the last 18 months, even during the depths of a pandemic. They also lay out what this fast-paced, mini-season 2.5 has to hold - with episodes featuring Indra Nooyi, Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh, Lisa Sweet, Bernhard Kowatsch, and Kate Kruger.

Resources for further learning:

Explore GFI India’s resources

(https://gfi-india.org/resources/)

Watch videos from the Smart Protein Summit 2021 for a deep understanding of the business, science, and policy behind smart protein - and its impacts on public and planetary health.

(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkUczvBheXjME7IRgvOKmUZBYJCFj0Xyw)

You can connect with Varun Deshpande:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Find GFI on Social Media:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: IVM Podcasts - Apps on Google Play or iOS: ‎IVM Podcasts, or any other podcast app.

You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featured

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the final episode of Feeding 10 Billion Season 2, we contend with some of our enduring questions - what will humans eat in a world that is rapidly warming and exposed to the worst effects of climate change? And how do we preserve our links to tradition and the foods we love to eat in this new world? A dystopian future threatening those traditions is already rearing its head in a multitude of ways. Alternating extreme weather cycles like drought caused by water scarcity or floods caused by sudden storms are already stripping the soil of its ability to sustain us. While we stay in to fend off the worst pandemic our generation has seen, we’ve also witnessed biblical proportions of pestilence ravaging our crops. This year, parts of East Africa, Iran, and India witnessed their most disruptive locust swarms in decades, while the UK’s unprecedented weather reduced wheat yields to their lowest levels in 40 years, threatening to convert it from an exporter to a net importer. If we want to prioritise food security, we will need all the answers we can find - all technologies, communities, and platforms that can help us build a more resilient food supply.

Today’s guest is an entrepreneur working on exactly the kind of foods that can enable us to reverse - or, at the very least, withstand - the ravages of climate change and public health crises. Thomas Jonas is CEO and cofounder of Nature’s Fynd, a company whose story is as fascinating as any science fiction you’ve ever read - it involves NASA, space exploration, and the world’s largest supervolcano. Nature’s Fynd has big plans for fueling the planet sustainably with complete protein from fungi - learn more on the season finale of F10B.

NOTES:

Companies Mentioned:

Nature’s Fynd

Bibliography

Biblical, on steroids, and across generations: The coming food and nutrition crash can be averted if we act now to counter the COVID-19 crisis, IFPRI Blog

Climate crisis: Extreme weather means UK faces worst wheat yields in 40 years, farmers’ union says, Independent

Beyond vegan burgers: next-generation protein could come from air, methane, volcanic springs, Reuters

Do These Tiny Organisms Hold the Key to Lab-Grown Food? Bloomberg

Food Startup Takes Microbes From the Volcano to the Table, The Wall Street Journal

Nature's Fynd (formerly Sustainable Bioproducts) raises $80m to grow food from microbes, Food Navigator USA

NASA’s Small Investments in Small Businesses Pay Big Dividends, NASA

For Further Reading:

Sustainable Bioproducts Makes Animal-Free Meat with Volcano Microorganisms, GFI Blog

Beyond Plants: Using Fermentation, Fungi, Algae, and Bacteria to Create Novel Proteins and Ingredients, The Good Food Conference, 2019

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We tend to focus on the fact that in the year 2050 we will have to feed 10 billion human beings on this planet but we won’t be the only species we have to worry about. We are currently witnessing an unprecedented loss of biodiversity as climate change makes this planet inhospitable for all species. We need to find a way to feed not just ourselves but also ensure other species thrive on Earth without being too extractive from nature. It is clear that biotech is going to be key to this transformation, and will rule the world just as software did for the last few decades. And there are a few people building the future of food at the vanguard of this development.

Our guest this week is one of the most prolific investors, and early stage funders of numerous biotech companies in the alternative protein space. Ryan Bethencourt is the CEO of Wild Earth that makes pet food from fermentation-based protein. He is also a partner at Babel Ventures, an early stage consumer biotech venture capital fund. As the co-founder, and CEO of incubators, and seed funds like IndieBio (an SOS Ventures backed accelerator, and early stage seed fund), Berkeley Bio Labs, a startup incubator, and sector builder, as well as the head of life sciences at the XPRIZE foundation, Ryan has funded well over a 100 companies. The list includes notable alternative protein companies like Shiok Meats, Memphis Meats, New Wave Foods, Clara Foods, Finless Foods as well as Mumbai’s plant-based egg company, Evo Foods. Ryan’s aim overlaps with ours at GFI India - we want to positively impact the lives of billions of people, and animals!

NOTES:

Companies Mentioned:

Wild Earth

IndieBio

Babel Ventures

Berkeley Bio Labs

XPrize Foundation

Bibliography:

Why Wild Earth Cofounder Ryan Bethencourt Is Applying The Science Of 'Vegan Biohacking' To Pet Food, Forbes.

Eat For The Planet #71 - Ryan Bethencourt: Reinventing Pet Food and Building the Post-Animal Bio Economy, EFTP.

This biotech startup is growing protein-rich vegan pet food in a lab, FastCompany

Shiok Meats takes the cultured meat revolution to the seafood aisle with plans for cultured shrimp, TechCrunch.

Tour the San Francisco lab that’s growing meat in a petri dish, CNBC

A foodtech EVO-lution: this startup is set to disrupt India’s plant-based food market with its ‘clean’ egg substitute, YourStory

For Further Reading:

Ryan Bethencourt’s writing on Medium.

Ryan’s videos on the Singularity University page.

What does it take to create a conducive environment for scale-up of new protein companies? Future of Protein Summit, YouTube Channel.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What seemed like science fiction just a few decades back, is increasingly becoming a reality. Early research pioneered by NASA on how to feed astronauts in long haul missions to planets like Mars brought closed loop systems and fermented ingredients to the spotlight. These systems don’t rely on limited natural resources, and could potentially be key to feeding 10 billion sustainably by 2050. And those fermentation machines? They’re none other than microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, and microalgae, which can make nutritious protein from little more than air, CO2, and water! Our guests this week are both accomplished PhD’s - one is from the investment side of the equation while the other is a biotech scientist who has turned entrepreneur. Ritu Verma is co-founder and managing partner at Ankur Capital, a firm that is funding ideas for the next billion, while Ezhil Subbian is CEO and Co-Founder of String, a synthetic biology company which makes microbial protein from methane. Ritu has backed Ezhil’s vision with the catalytic capital we keep talking about on this show. In developed startup ecosystems like Silicon Valley, academia partners with investors and entrepreneurs to leverage technology transfer and fuel innovation. In India, those pathways are still being built out - but before that happens, we need focussed intervention in the form of grants, funding and other incentives from the government to create those cradles of scientific enterprise within universities and other players. Ezhil and Ritu are the perfect guests to tell us more. Listen to find out what it really takes to scale biotech innovation in emerging markets.

NOTES:

Companies Mentioned:

Ankur Capital

String Bio

Air Protein

Solar Foods

Gevo

C-CAMP

BIRAC

Bibliography:

The Bio Revolution: Innovations transforming economies, societies, and our lives, McKinsey

Why Software is Eating the World, Marc Andresssen, Wall Street Journal

FSSAI manpower shortage: Govt sanctions nearly 500 additional posts for food regulator, FirstPost

For Further Reading:

Bridging the Valley of Death between Innovation Funding and Market Adoption: Forbes

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Smart protein, if done right, can be a big win for the planet. By now, hopefully, it is clear that foods that replace animal-sourced meat, eggs, and dairy tend to use fewer resources, do not contribute to rising greenhouse gas emissions, and diminish the risk of zoonotic diseases and antibiotic resistance. But equally exciting is the sector’s potential to tackle issues that we grapple with and mention on Feeding 10 Billion all the time - like malnutrition. India faces the tremendous challenge of being home to a third of the world’s total stunted children, and half of all under-5 child mortality in the country is due to undernutrition. Poor nutrition in the first 1000 days of a child’s life is crucial to tackling this issue, as is a young mother’s health. Irrespective of whether they feed their kids breastmilk or formula, (and face guilt over whatever they choose), if mothers are grappling with anemia or poor nutrition, their kids do not have access to the nutrients they so badly need. Meanwhile, over 10% of cow’s milk production globally is actually absorbed by the infant nutrition market. Our guests this week, (which is timed perfectly with World Breastfeeding Week), have a solution that could allow mothers to feed their children actual human breast milk without worrying about a baby’s ability to latch, their own nutrition, or supplementing inadequate feed with formula made from animal-sourced milk. All while giving their babies the nutrients they desperately need. Michelle Egger is the CEO, and Co-Founder of BioMilq, while Leila Strickland is the CSO, and Co-Founder. They are a women-owned, science-led, and parent-centered infant nutrition company producing breast milk cultivated from cells!

NOTES:

Companies Mentioned:

Biomilq

Turtle Tree Labs

Scientific Definitions:

Cellular Physiology: Cellular physiology is concerned with the mechanism of transport of nutrients, ions, and water into and out of the cell, as well as how cells communicate with each other through signaling pathways, or respond to external cues.

Epithelial/ Epithelium (Intestinal, Kidney, Corneal, Mammary): Membranous tissue composed of one or more layers of cells separated by very little intercellular substance and forming the covering of most internal and external surfaces of the body and its organs.

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMO, also known as human milk glycans): Sugar molecules that are part of the oligosaccharides group and can be found in high concentrations exclusively in human breast milk.

Bibliography:

Bill Gates’ climate-change investment firm bets on lab-produced breast milk, CNBC

BIOMILQ Could Be The Next Major Food Disruptor: Getting Real About Entrepreneurship With Co Founder And CEO Michelle Egger, Forbes

Breakthrough: Two women producing breast milk - outside the body, Medium

The Business Case for Investment in Nutrition, Chatham House

WHO and UNICEF warn of a decline in vaccinations during COVID-19, WHO

Overview of Malnutrition in India

WHO on Nutrition and Breastfeeding

For Further Reading:

Feeding Lessons to tackle malnutrition, Frontline

Unfolding the Human Milk Microbiome Landscape in the Omics Era, Frontiers in Food Microbiology

Breastfed Right: How Shrirampur’s Babies Escape Malnutrition: IndiaSpend

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.